Skip to content
Home
Favourites
0
Advanced search
Shopping cart
0
Register
Log in
Images of Edinburgh
Browse map
Area A - Z
Browse by date
Exhibitions
Current exhibition
All exhibitions
Collections
About the collections
Browse by theme
Subject A - Z
The image library for the collections of Edinburgh Libraries and Museums and Galleries
Images of Edinburgh
Browse map
Area A - Z
Browse by date
Exhibitions
Current exhibition
All exhibitions
Collections
About the collections
Browse by theme
Subject A - Z
Subject matches "Belgium" or its children
Back to search results
The shields of Rosselaere
Raemaekers, Louis, 1916, Chromolithograph
Item
of 41
The shields of Rosselaere
The shields of Rosselaere
Add to favourites
Share
Item record
About this image
Related
Location
Category
Library Item
Item no
32959
Title
The shields of Rosselaere
Description
"At Rosselaere the German troops forced the Belgian townsfolk to march in front of them."
Artist / maker
Raemaekers, Louis
Date
1916
Size
34.5 x 25.9 cm
Type
Chromolithograph
Location
Art and Design Library
Copyright
Louis Raemaekaers' drawings are reproduced by kind permission of the
Louis Raemaekers Foundation
.
As part of the Schlieffen Plan, which outlined how Germany would fight a war against France and Russia concurrently, German troops invaded Belgium in August 1914. Although Belgium was neutral at the time, German troops attacked cities and executed civilians. Germany's treatment of Belgians during the first months of the war would become known as the Belgian atrocities. Raemaekers was horrified by the accounts he heard from refugees and visited Belgium to witness the situation himself. He drew multiple cartoons addressing the injustice and cruelty of the Belgian atrocities including this composition. This piece shows German soldiers marching to Rösselaere, using Belgian civilians as human shields. Raemaekers focuses his detail on the humanity of the dying civilians. The German soldiers are a faceless mass, only identifiable by their helmets, pushing the individualised Belgians into bullets.
The
Louis Raemaekers Foundation
have published a book of his works entitled, 'Louis Raemaekers - with pen and pencil as a weapon'.
Exhibitions with this item
Louis Raemaekers and World War One
Other views of this item
Related images
Related subjects
Events
>
Wars
>
World wars
Natural phenomena
>
Weather
>
Rain
People
>
Adults
>
Crowds
People
>
Adults
>
Men
Places
>
Europe
>
Belgium
More like this